Govt seeks IIM help to mentor agri start-ups

An ambitious plan titled “Agri Udaan” to mentor innovating start-ups of the agriculture sector was launched last week by the ministry of agriculture with the help of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad.

Agri Udaan aims at selecting the innovative startups and mentoring them to scale up their operations in agri value chain for effective improvement in agriculture. This is a 6 month programme in which shortlisted agri startups with promising innovative business models will be mentored and guided to scale up their operations, read a govt release.

Known as Accelerators this is a 4-8 month program and involves education, mentorship, and financing. Startups enter accelerators for a fixed-period of time, and as part of a cohort. The cohort is shortlisted by evaluation panel comprising of industry veterans, business experts, R&D scientists.

Four distinct factors that make accelerators unique are fixed term, cohort based, mentorship driven and they culminate into demo day.

Agri Udaan will be reaching out to agri-start ups across the country with a series of road shows in Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad.

The application is available at www.aidea.naarm.org.in. Applications will be evaluated by mentors from industry, business and partner organizations, based on the average scores top 40 startups will be shortlisted and allowed to pitch in front of panel of evaluators during cohort finalization programme on 9th and 10th of October 2017 at NAARM. Out of these about 8 to 12 startups will be selected for final cohort for capacity building workshop.